Out with Bashar Al Assad! No to the Imperialist Intervention!

The governments of the main imperialist powers [i.e. U.S. and Western European nations], as well as Turkey, are preparing a military attack on Syria. Despite the British Parliament’s rejection of military intervention, the Obama administration stated that it was prepared to launch a unilateral American military action, perhaps with the support of France.

Using the chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of Damascus, which killed roughly 1,400 people, as a pretext, the U.S. says that armed intervention will achieve “humanitarian” goals and that it would aimed towards “protecting Syrian civilians.”

According to the Washington Post, the U.S. is considering a limited, tailored military intervention in terms of time and targets. The proposed military operation, in conjunction with other willing imperialist powers, would consist of a few days of missile bombardment from the sea against military targets, which are not necessarily only restricted to sites related to chemical weapons.

The presence and growth of U.S. Navy warships in the Eastern Mediterranean armed with cruise missiles, in addition to others from the UK and France, reinforces this hypothesis.

The military operation, as it is currently designed, would not be an action intended to obliterate the al-Assad regime, but rather to weaken him and force the regime to accept an agreement on the basis of a transitional government without Assad, a policy that has been preferred by imperialism.

The White House has confirmed through this its spokesman, Josh Earnest, when he said to the U.S. Congress that the action will be “very discreet and limited” and not an “open-ended conflict aimed at regime change.” Hollande, the French president, also said that the purpose would to be to “stop” the use of chemical weapons and that “it is not about overthrowing” Assad.

In regards to military options, imperialist powers are trying to find options with the least political cost, especially in the midst of a powerful process of peoples’ revolutions that shake the Syria and the Arab region as a whole. In this context, the current proposed military intervention would be less risky for the imperialism, which has no domestic political conditions – only 25% of the population supports armed intervention – to consider a boots-on-the-ground approach, which would mean a long-term ground campaign.

Even a no-fly zone is being planned very carefully, since the Assad regime’s are defenses do pose a credible threat.

We know that many rebels are fighting to bring an end to a tyrannical regime, which has ruled the country for 40 years, and has committed the most terrible atrocities against its people throughout this civil war. And many rebels, as a result, may see this possible intervention by imperialist forces as a “helping hand” or “protection,” in their struggle against Assad, whose forces are better equipped to handle a war.

We support the struggle of the Syrian people to overthrow Assad, but any imperialist intervention will not be designed to help the rebels down the road, and thus, such intervention must be thoroughly opposed.

Imperialist intervention will not be “humane.” It will not “save lives” or “defend human rights,” nor aid “the triumph of the revolution.” If the U.S. really wanted to help the Syrian rebels to topple Assad, it would have unconditionally provided them – a long time ago – with heavy weapons, such as airplanes, tanks and anti-aircraft missiles.

Through military intervention, the U.S. imperialist interests are seeking to gain direct influence over the new government that would replace Assad and ensure an agreement that meets its current and potential interests.

Imperialism always intervenes to defend its own objectives, which are the direct domination of the economy and politics of the subjected territory. That was the reason for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s also why it supports Israel in the usurpation of territories and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people, and why it supports the ultra-reactionary monarchy of Saudi Arabia and their intervention in Bahrain to end an uprising against the Bahraini government, which is another country deep in the pockets of the U.S.

This is also its goal in Syria. The discourse on alleged humanitarian motives, as “protecting civilians” is a siren song that should not fool the Syrian fighters, nor the world left. Proof of this is the own role of the imperialism until now in the civil war in Syria.

Obama’s policy, soon after the start of the popular uprising against the Syrian dictatorship, was to support al-Assad, since he has provided valuable services in relation to Israel’s security and the stabilization of the region.

Imperialism’s hypocrisy has no limits. While al-Assad was able to ensure stability, Obama and the key European powers always closed their eyes to all the repression and crimes of his bloody dictatorship.

It withdrew its support to the dictator – and not to the regime itself – only after realizing that keeping it against the armed struggle of the Syrian people had became unsustainable from the point of view of the main interest of the U.S. right now: stabilize the country and defeat the revolution throughout the region.

However, even though U.S. imperialism agrees on the departure of Bashar al-Assad, that does not mean it has abandoned the policy of negotiating a way out, as far as possible, between the regime and the pro-imperialist sectors of the opposition, as the Syrian National Council (CNS).

In this context, in the face of a situation where there is an undefined civil war that has destabilized the region, and the firmness of Assad to refuse negotiations, the U.S. is trying to defeat the revolution with a military intervention to ensure the control of the region, even without Bashar.

Their goal, then, is not to “liberate” the Syrian people, but rather try to become the new masters, aiming to impose colonial rulers as they did in many other countries. It will try to prevent the Syrian people and the rebels, who were the ones on the frontline of the fight and whose martyrs gave their sweat and blood for the revolution, from governing after the defeat of the tyrant.

Instead, they will impose the disarmament of all revolutionaries in order to hold the military monopoly and to “stabilize” the country towards their interests, using, if necessary, puppet governments. But nothing shows that the fulfillment of these plans will be an easy task for imperialism, as it is not in Libya, given that a great revolution is taking place in Syria and all over the region.

What are the reasons of the possible intervention?

It is important to understand why the U.S. wants to militarily interfere now when it has largely tried to avoid this option for the vast majority of the Syrian conflict. Over the last months, the Assad regime made ​​great advances, recovering strategic positions which had gone into rebel hands. But these victories were sustained mainly by the superiority of armaments and material assistance it received from the external help of Hezbollah, Iran and Russia. Without this military superiority and foreign aid, it would be very difficult for these advances happen.

This is demonstrated in the difficulty the regime has had in carrying out large-scale ground operations with its own troops, since many among Assad’s rank have lost morale. Therefore, they make systematic use of sieges supported by airstrikes or missiles, which do not require direct combat. There are reports that the regime has a lot of difficulties and must resort to internal repression, to avoid mass desertions of its soldiers and officers.

This explains why, despite the last advances and success of troops loyal to Assad on the Lebanon border and in Homs, the different forces of resistance continue to control a significant part of the country. The Free Syrian Army (ESL), despite recent and costly setbacks, still control whole districts in the outskirts of the capital, Damascus.

What this means is that even the Assad regime does not have the ability to crush the revolution entirely, even in Damascus. The same in other major cities such as Aleppo, where rebels recently took one of the main air bases of the regime.

It is in this situation of tactical victories, but worsening strategic conditions, which led the dictatorship to begin a systematic and devastating bombing raid on the outskirts of Damascus, and as has, according to some accusations, used its chemical weapons arsenal on a scale that until then it had not had employed.

The aim of this escalation of attacks, including poisonous gas, can not be other than the extermination, i.e. cleansing of rebels from Damascus, and the imposition of a stark terror on the entire population.

Imperialism, facing these dynamics of unpredictable consequences, tries to solve in its favor a situation marked by an entrenched civil war, which has dragged on for two years in a strategic region

It will interfere to demonstrate its military presence in the region and force a negotiation with Al Assad, to a “transition” that tends to stabilize the country and the region, an important condition for further imperialist plunder. If negotiation is not possible, it will try to impose a new government without Assad, under the direct control of Imperialism

Supporters of Castro-Chavez, using the threats of imperialist intervention to further justify their support to the Assad regime – just as they supported Gaddafi – state that the U.S. wants to bring down Assad because he is a “leading anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist.” And they are making an appeal to the people and to left in order to support and unite with al-Assad, for his alleged role in the “resistance” to imperialism

But, this analysis is false. Assad’s regime is not “anti-imperialist.” It has been an important part of the scheme of the Zionist imperialist domination in the region, and especially in the last few years, as it has been a faithful dispenser of the neoliberal policies of the IMF and a guarantor of the boundaries of the Zionist state, against whom there has not been a single shot fired in 40 years.

According to the supporters of Castro and Chavez, Assad would also be a radical opponent of Israel and protector of the Palestinians. But the reality is that over the course of the civil war, of all the crimes he committed against humanity, Al Assad systematically bombed the Palestinian camps, when a sector of these turned to the opposition, which is the case of Yarmouk in Damascus, which has been under siege preventing the camp from receiving food and medicine.

We are totally against imperialist intervention, but this can not lead us to support the bloody dictatorship of Al Assad. This is what the supporters of Castro Chavism do, and therefore, they have become accomplices of the horrendous crimes made by these dictators.

The working class and the peoples of the world must be more than ever, on the side of Syrian revolution against the Assad dictatorship, and at the same time repudiate the imperialist interference in that country.

It is necessary that in the imperialist countries we fight the campaigns they are waging in order to justify military intervention, that we mobilize against governments that prepare plans for armed intervention. We must denounce the possible intervention under the guise of “humanitarian” and reveal its true purpose to impose new masters on the Syrian people.

We must also lend our support to the rebels, and their right to topple a hardline dictatorship. That means sending, unconditional and immediate, heavy weapons, and all kinds of materials, such as drugs and equipment for resistance in Syria, and the opening of national borders to the passage of aid and of those fighters who are willing to fight against Assad.

At the same time we demand, in all the countries, the immediately breaking of diplomatic and trade relations with the Syrian dictatorship.

Out with Al Assad, No to imperialist intervention!

Mobilize all countries supporting the revolution in Syria and against the imperialist invasion plans!

We demand the breaking of diplomatic and trade relations with the Syrian dictatorship!

That the governments of the world send weapons and medicine to the Syrian rebels!

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Who We Are

La Voz De Los Trabajadores/Workers' Voice is a revolutionary socialist organization. We are the sympathizing organization of the International Workers League (LIT-CI) in the United States. We formed in California in 2008 around the struggles of the immigrant working class & the fight for militant, democratic trade unions and other workers’ and people’s organizations that defend the principle of class independence.